Long term development: Coaching HS, college, and professional runners

I was fortunate enough to give a presentation for the Gulf Coast Scholastic Track Coaches Association Clinic this weekend. In the talk, I focused on the keys to long term development. I don’t like giving generic talks on training, so my hope was to explore some of the differences between coaching at different developmental ages. I use HS, college, and Pro to classify, but it’s really tailoring training to their actual “training age”. I’ve posted the power point presentation below, and hope you enjoy it.

Steve, I know you've talked before about how muscle fiber types are more of a spectrum than distinct categories. How do you account for people who are about in the middle when it comes to FT or ST. Or is there training just somewhere in between.

Hey Coach Magness!I'm a frequent reader of your site and a runner at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN. I was wondering why someone with 18+ for their max lactate would have more FT fibers? Could you go deeper into that or do you already have an article on here that does?Thanks,Mason

Steve, I agree with what you've got here. Two questions: 1) Some of the LTAD literature suggests there is a "window" around the age of 14-17 during which anaerobic training should be initiated. The idea is that if you don't start kids on speed training at this time, it won't "take" later. I'm not sure this is true. I much prefer your model. 2) what you've described here kind of goes against some of the things Salazar has said in various talks. He seems to be more about the middle than the extremes. MaybeI'm misinterpreting. Thoughts?

Steve, in your slide (the 11th slide "Start at the extremes") you classify the paces of general endurance, aerobic support, and so on as moving up/down a race distance in relation to the specific race, in this case, the 3200m race.

I was wondering this: for say the 5k or 10k or 15k or 25k or even the marathon how you would determine the paces for general endurance, aerobic support, direct aerobic support, etc. Especially for the longer or more obscure distances, it is not as clear cut to simply train, for instance, at 5k pace for direct aerobic support.

Would it make sense, then, to calculate these paces based on percentages? Say, for example, I'm a 30:30 10k runner. "Specific" (or 100%) would be ~4:54/mile pace. Then… where do you go from there? Would "General Endurance" be 80-85% of the specific (approximately a 6:07-5:45/mile pace)? Would "General Speed" be 110%? Is there a generalized percentage spectrum that can be applied to any race? And what is that spectrum?

Steve, this is a great post. However, I have a question. On the 11th slide titled "Start at the Extremes" you classify different zones with paces of different race paces (i.e. General Endurance=Steady/threshold running, Aerobic Support= 10k race pace, and so on.

My question, then, is this: How would you determine the paces for other races such as 5k or 10k or 15k or 25k or marathon? Would it make sense to work with percentages? (For example, if I'm a 30:30 10k runner, would 80-85% of 10k race pace (5:45-6:07/mile pace) be considered General Endurance? We will call "specifc/race pace" 100%.)

Would percentages work? If so, what is the generalized spectrum of percentages that could be applied for all races mile and up (if there is)?

Your response is appreciated.

Thank you

P.S. I used this formula to get my paces: [race pace per a mile] / [chosen percentage] = [pace for workout]

Steve,I've learned a lot from your blog, thanks for being so generous. How solid is the research that claims a FT muscle fiber runner could taper a bit longer than a ST muscle fiber? Considering the human system and your article on stimulus response, I'd be a bit weary of this general conclusion in the slide show. This might hold true for someone trained in the old system, but maybe not in the new one you described in that article. Maybe I read the slide wrong as well.

As an amateur (although ambitious) runner, I've been wondering about interpolating your long term plan for an older folk like me. I took up running at the age of 21. Does the change in training's volume and intensity is only a function of running experience, or is it correlated with age as well? I mean, would you still find beneficial to run "extremes" for the first 3 or 4 years of running "career", even if a runner is in postgraduate age, or would you alter that just because physical maturity is already there?